Chapter 1. The Role of ML and AI in Security
Why has there been such a sudden explosion of ML and AI in security? The truth is that these technologies have been underpinning many security tools for years. Frankly, both tools are necessary precisely because there has been such a rapid increase in the number and complexity of attacks. These attacks carry a high cost for business. Recent studies predict that global annual cybercrime costs will grow from $3 trillion in 2015 to $6 trillion annually by 2021. This includes damage and destruction of data, stolen money, lost productivity, theft of intellectual property, theft of personal and financial data, embezzlement, fraud, post-attack disruption to the normal course of business, forensic investigation, restoration and deletion of hacked data and systems, and reputational harm.1 Global spending on cybersecurity products and services for defending against cybercrime is projected to exceed $1 trillion cumulatively from 2017 to 2021.2
The reality is that organizations have not been able to rely for a while on a “set it and forget it” approach to security using antiquated, inflexible, and static defenses. Instead, adaptive and automated security tools that rely on ML and AI under the hood are becoming the norm in security, and your security team must adapt to these technologies in order to be able to succeed.
Security teams are tasked with protecting an organization’s data, operations, and people. To protect against the current attack ...